Out of Disaster A Liberal Renaissance in the 1920s: House of Truth

From the Covid stay-at-home greatest hits: Patriotic Americans were shocked by the outcome of the 2016 election. As they were in 1920 when Republicans put up Warren Harding, a big business Republican who campaigned and won on an America First message, stoking the public’s fear of immigrants and clamping down hard on freedoms of the press and of speech. Then liberals came roaring back to a point where today, many decades later, Republicans are still fighting to destroy liberalism’s significant accomplishments. In his recent book, House of Truth: A Washington Political Salon and the Foundations of American Liberalism, author Brad Snyder shares the story of a townhouse near Dupont Circle which served as gathering place for such notables as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Felix Frankfurter, Walter Lippman, and Louis Brandeis, to name a few. Liberals ended up gaining power from being out of power. Can their success be replicated today? Absolutely, Snyder argues: Focus now on the system of justice and we can link populist concerns with liberal values.The story includes Sacco and Vanzetti, the creation of Mt Rushmore, and corruption affecting flyboys in WWI. One of the best books I have ever read.